Re: rare sounds (was: easy sounds)

Sorry this is a day late!

On Saturday, January 8, 2005, at 07:03 , # 1 wrote:

[snip]
> Are rare weird combinaisons of a nasal followed by its plosive like [mb],
> it's labio-dental equivalent, [nd], [Ng]?
These are not in fact particularly rare. They are indeed very common in
African languages, and are not unknown in European languages, for example
Albanian. I am quite sure they are found in other parts of the world as
well.

They may very well occur in Bax  :)

> It is because I suddently want to create a weird language which would
> sounds
> special.
By far the most common consonant sounds throughout the world are those
made with the pulmonic airstream (that is an airstream initiated by the
lungs). So if you want rare sounds then go for the non-pulmonic ones.

There are two sorts:
GLOTTALIC SOUNDS
The airstream is initiated by the glottis. Close the vocal folds tightly
so no air can escape through the glottis. Then, by muscular action of the
larynx, the glottis is moved up or down, inititiaring either an egressive
or ingressive airstream.

The consonants produced by egressive airsteam are known as _ejectives_.
There plosive, fricative and affricate ejectives. IPA symbolizes them by
putting a superscript comma after the appropriate plosive, fricative or
affricate symbol. Since no air can pass through the tightly closed vocal
folds, all ejectives are unvoiced and are accompanied by heavy aspriration.

A downward movement of the larynx produced the ingressive glottalic. As
the articulators in the oral cavity must form an airtight closure before
the closed glottis is lowered, all ingressive glottalic sounds must be
stops (or plosives); to distinguish them from the normal pulmonic plosives,
  they are known as _implosives_. Also as the vocal folds relax when the
air passes through the glottis, implosives are always slightly voiced. The
are shown in IPA thus: [ɓ] (bilabial), [ɗ] (alveolar) and [ɠ] (velar) - in
CXS [b_<], [d_<] and [g_<].

Both types of glottalic sound occur in several African languages, but on
the world-wide stage, the sounds are not common.

VELARIC SOUNDS
The airstream is initiated by the tongue. Egressive sounds initialed by
the tongue are likely to result in spitting and AFAIK do not occur as
speech sounds in any language  ;)

Ingressive velaric sounds, however, are found; they are commonly called
'clicks'. Form a closure with the back of the tongue against the velum and
rarify the air in the mouth with another closure made more forward in the
mouth (this is the secondary closure. Now release the closures so that the
oral cavity is suddenly filled giving rise to the click. there are five
fundamental clicks:

Bilabial click, IPA [ʘ] CXS [O\]. Both lips are closed and released
sharply to fill the oral cavity as the the back of the tongue is lowered.
It a 'kissing' sound - I do not know what languages have it, but it does
occur.

Dental click, IPA [|] CSX [|\] and spelled |c| in the Nguni languages of
southern Africa (this group includes Zulu and Xhosa). The tip of the
tongue is pressed against the back of the upper teeth before being
abruptly released. It sometimes used as an axclamation of mild disgust in
English, and represented as "tut-tut'.

(Post-)alveolar click, IPA [!] CSX [!\] and spelled |q| in the Nguni
languages. The front of is pressed against the post alveolar region &
withdrawn sharply. the sound os rather like a champagne cork popping  :)

Palato-alveolar click, IPA [ǂ] CSX [=\] but not used in the Nguni
languages. The front of the tongue is raised to press firmly against the
hard palate, then withdrawn abruptly.

Alveolar lateral click, IPA [||] (double vertical pipe) CXZ [|\|\], and
spelled |x| in the Nguni languages. The blade of the tongue is pressed
against the alveolar ridge and one side (it does not matter which) is
firmly pressed against the side of the oral category. The sound is the
'clucking' sound sometimes used in English to urge on horses.

All the clicks can be voiced, aspirated and nasalized. Xhosa has a quite
of lot of click consonants, thus:
                               DENTAL   ALVEOLAR  LATERAL
      VOICELESS UNASPIRATED      c         q         x
        VOICELESS ASPIRATED      ch        qh        xh
       VOICED (UNASPIRATED)      gc        gq        gx
  UNVOICED WITH VELAR NASAL      nc        nq        nx
    VOICED WITH VELAR NASAL      ngc       ngq       ngx
UNVOICED AFTER VELAR NASAL      nkc       nkg       nkx

Hopefully, this has given you a few ideas   :)

Ray
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